Renee Gill Pratt retrial may last three weeks, judge says

Opening statements are set for Wednesday morning in the retrial of the federal racketeering case against former New Orleans City Councilwoman and state Rep. Renee Gill Pratt.

A 12-member jury was seated late Tuesday following two days of sometimes contentious debate between U.S. District Court Judge Ivan Lemelle and Gill Pratt's attorney, Michael Fawer.

On several occasions, Fawer complained loudly that Lemelle was qualifying prospective jurors who had expressed bias toward his client during questioning. The judge denied several requests by Fawer to dismiss jurors from the pool "for cause."

At one point on Monday, Fawer accused Lemelle of posing "confusing" questions to jurors and of cutting him off as he attempted to ask follow-up questions. During one heated exchange, Lemelle threatened to cite Fawer for "unprofessional behavior."

Ultimately, Lemelle took full control of the voir dire, the technical term for juror screening.

In the end, the jury of seven men and five women was seated without further incident. Eleven of the jurors are white, and one of them is black. The two alternates are also black. One is a man and the other is a woman. Jurors were selected from residents of the 13-parish area around New Orleans that comprises the U.S. District Court's Eastern District of Louisiana.

The jury in Gill Pratt's first trial also had only one black member.

Gill Pratt, who is black, avoided conviction in February after jurors were unable to reach a verdict after deliberating for more than 30 hours over five days. A juror interviewed by The Times-Picayune said that 11 jurors were ready to convict Gill Pratt almost immediately, but a lone holdout refused to budge.

Gill Pratt is accused of conspiring with members of then-U.S. Rep. William Jefferson's family to loot more than $1 million from sham charities supported with taxpayer money.

The government's case hinges largely on whether Gill Pratt knew the nonprofit groups she helped finance were bogus. Both the prosecution and the defense agree that members of the Jefferson family stole most of the money intended for the charities. During testimony in the first trial, Gill Pratt acknowledged that she steered millions of taxpayer dollars to the groups, but said she didn't know they were being looted.

Handling the case once again for the U.S. attorney's office are Fred Harper, Daniel Friel and Brian Marcelle.

As he did last time, Lemelle told members of the jury pool that the well-documented legal troubles facing Jefferson, the nine-term congressman who was voted out of office in 2009, had nothing to do with the Gill Pratt case.

Jefferson, who hired Gill Pratt as a legislative aide when he served as a state senator in the 1980s, is appealing a corruption conviction in Virginia in which he was sentenced to 13 years in prison. He has remained free on bond while the case is on appeal.

Some of the questions to prospective jurors focused on the burden the trial might place on their lives. Lemelle said he expects the trial to last two to three weeks.

Other questions sought to determine how much jurors knew about the case against Gill Pratt, who sat attentively at the defense table throughout the jury selection process, frequently consulting with Fawer. Members of the jury pool also were quizzed about whether they had any preconceived notions about nonprofit groups, Gill Pratt or other members of the Jefferson family.

The two women that the government originally portrayed as the ringleaders of the scheme -- former 4th District Assessor Betty Jefferson and her daughter, Angela Coleman -- pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and aggravated identity theft. They testified against Gill Pratt last time and are expected to do so again.

Mose Jefferson, Betty's brother and Gill Pratt's longtime boyfriend, was supposed to be the other major defendant in the case. He died May 12 while serving a 10-year federal prison term for bribery and obstruction of justice in a separate public corruption case.